Dead On Arrival

Natchitoches and the smaller community of Many are surrounded by
forests and sustained by timber companies that harvest them. Toledo
Bend Reservoir, which snakes 76 miles between Many and the Texas border
to the west, is a popular fishing spot that teems with tourists in the
summertime.

Many residents of Natchitoches who don't work in the timber industry
are employed by the local paper mill or the chicken processing plant on
the outskirts of town. Some local young people commute to the offshore
oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. Still, other residents have come to the
quaint little town to retire. Natchitoches is where the movie Steel
Magnolias was filmed, and the place exudes a peaceful, Southern
charm.

But like many communities across the country, the area's young
people have more than their share of problems, including substance
abuse, sexually transmitted diseases, and tuberculosis, to name but a
few.

To address some of these problems, Willie Valerie, director of the
Natchitoches Outpatient Medical Center, proposed in the fall of 1992
setting up a school-based health center at the town's junior high
school. The school's principal called the proposal "very exciting.''
And last winter, the local school board adopted a resolution supporting
the establishment of the clinic, stating that there is a "definite need
for this type of health service and counseling for this high 'at-risk'
population.'' In March, Mike Whitford, superintendent of the
Natchitoches parish schools, wrote a letter of support to accompany the
application for state funding.

Some local residents, however, were less than enthusiastic about the
clinic idea. Danny Wells, a local forester, was so strongly opposed to
the plan that he formed the Coalition of Concerned Citizens to fight
it. Over the next month, Wells and his coalition gathered more than 600
signatures on a petition asking the school board to rescind the
application.

"It's a parental consent issue,'' says Wells, who has two boys in
the Natchitoches public schools. "We want to be in control of our
children, not a clinic or another arm of government.''

Opponents denied that students lacked access to health services,
since there was already a hospital and medical center in the town, and
they questioned who would be liable in a case of malpractice. They held
sway at town meetings and informal gatherings, pursuing their case with
a missionary's zeal.

The pressure was too strong for school and community leaders to
withstand. Last spring, the health center sponsoring the clinic pulled
its application, citing a lack of support for the project, and the
school board's resolution became mute.

Whitford, who was sorry to see the clinic proposal die, stresses
that if the plan were to be resurrected in the future, local leaders
would have to do a better job of selling the idea to the community.
"The opponents weren't a bunch of rabble-rousers or rednecks,'' he
says, "but it all got blown out of proportion that we would be
advocating abortions and distributing condoms. It really caught me
totally by surprise, all the controversy. Our intentions were
honorable.''

As the Natchitoches plan was collapsing last spring, the town of
Many was entering a similar battle of its own.

Sabine Parish, which includes Many's three schools, has no
established health curriculum other than a basic six-week course
provided through a physical education class. More than 60 percent of
the students at the junior high level live in poverty, and many have
limited access to local health services.

So Margaret Basco, director of the local Head Start program, lobbied
to set up a clinic at the junior high school, with the principal's
blessing.

But as soon as the school board announced a public hearing on the
proposal, the town erupted. "People in the community seemed so
frantic,'' Basco recalls.

A few local ministers became so incensed that they began circulating
literature claiming the school system had been duped by government
agencies that wanted to establish abortion clinics in the schools. "A
school-based clinic is a legal term for Planned Parenthood, and their
objective is to make birth control available,'' says Reverend Robert
Spear of the First Baptist Church in Many, who preached against the
clinics in his Sunday sermons.

Judy Slippick, a parent and retired teacher, wrote a column in the
local newspaper questioning the wisdom of the proposal and the cost of
the enterprise. "When the grant runs out,'' she wrote, "the school
district and the local community must assume the cost.''

As in Natchitoches, some opponents also argued that the clinic would
simply duplicate health services already available in the
community.

James Mitchell, principal of Many Junior High School, defended the
clinic idea, pointing out that only one school nurse served all of
Many's schools. He implored community residents at a school board
meeting to recognize that students need psychological counseling, good
nutrition, and a nurse to take care of minor injuries and illnesses at
school.

Although the state office of public health had already informed the
school that the application had been approved and that it would be
receiving money for the clinic, school board members felt they lacked
the support necessary to continue. One month after the Natchitoches
plan died, the Sabine Parish board rescinded its application.

"I feel reluctant to do this,'' School Board President Warren Founds
said following the vote. "By dropping the application, I feel like we,
as a board, are remiss in our duties. We are pretty much sticking our
heads in the sand and avoiding the problem.''--Jessica Portner

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